EgyptAir

I do not want for one second to belittle the tragic loss of life that occurs with each air crash but I wonder, what is it about a plane crash that impacts on our consciousness? Every two days, approximately 66 people are killed on Egyptian roads; a total of 12,000 a year. 45 people per 100,000 die on Egyptian roads. Thats a horrific statistic but no one says anything about it. A year ago, a bus veered off the road at Giza into a canal leading to 35 people dead. It barely made a blip in…

When I was a child, in the late 1960s, I lived in Ibadan, Nigeria. From Ibadan we once flew to the then capital Lagos on a Nigerian Airways WAAC flight –along with live chickens in the cabin. (Pictured is a the type of Vickers plane they used at Lagos Airport in 1969 -Wikipedia) The carrier was renamed Nigeria Airways in 1971, the year I left Nigeria. Sadly, despite government ownership, the great BOAC legacy and a potentially huge passenger base, Nigeria Airways folded in 2004. The Nigerian government immediately began negotiations for a new carrier and Virgin…